Gunslinger Girl: See Naples and Die
by RJ Frazer
Summary: Naples is a city with a long history - and its people have long memories. Mario Bossi's past in the Camorra returns to haunt him, for Naples is a dangerous place - and not only because it sits under Mount Vesuvius...
1. Chapter 1

GUNSLINGER GIRL

"_See Naples and Die"_

_By_

_Robert Frazer_

* * *

_Qui Rido Io – Here I Laugh_

Inscription on the Palazzo Di Scarpetta, Naples.

* * *

Naples spreads out underneath Mount Vesuvius, and sitting in the shadow of a volcano is as apt an image of the city as any. It is a dense, congested hive of humanity, where narrow streets are clamped shut by towering buildings, lives are forever encumbered by having to forge up or tumble down the steep hills, and the only way to make space to even breathe is to push against someone else. If you want something, you have to take it – and take it quickly, before the relentless surge of the packed human mass sweeps you away, pulps you underfoot or crushes you into a corner (the people of Naples are artistically-minded and can muster plenty of variety). It is a hot, close, stifled, foetid environment and the steadily advancing Mediterranean heat only aggravates the stink.

Some speak of Neapolitans as having a vibrant, forthright and fast-paced Devil-may-care attitude. Others understand that the city is a boiling cauldron where people either get out - or burn.

* * *

_It was magnificent. _

_As Mario passed by the toy shop each morning on the way to school, the rising sun – he could never remember a day when it had rained – would beam through its window and make it radiant. Bears and dolls, horses and soldiers, kites and streamers; a dazzling welter of colour, iridescent through the glass – but none equalling the splendour of that robot. It may have been an ungainly thing, unsophisticated even back then, and its coat may have been a dull, scuffed brass – but for those few precious moments, measured like pearl drops, before his testy and demanding brother yanked and dragged him back along the path, both he and the sun looked the same way. The robot glowed like gold._

_Mario would come back on weekends, spending hours pining for it. Occasionally, the shopkeeper would shuffle to the window, and with an indulgent smile crank up the robot's mechanism for a walk around the display. It would creak a stuttering march, lurching and tottering past all of the leaping and dancing devices that the shop was resplendent in, but he loved and longed for every judder and jerk, each one a spurt and burst of happiness._

_That was what made it so painful. _

_The shopkeeper thought, in his own contented - _conceited_ - charity, that he was helping to give one of the poorer boys of the town a little taste of pleasure… but, the boy howled, why only a taste? He wanted, yearned, lusted for it. It was a simple toy, but the fact that something so small – maybe old and not valuable to everyone, but precious to _him- _remained in sight and yet beyond reach maddened. Why did it have to be so hard? Mario was poor, but he wanted a robot, not to be royalty. He wouldn't ask for the world – but the one thing that he did ask for was not spurred on by wistful hope, but discharged from the grotesque, mutated envy of what you want, but cannot have._

_"Ask, and ye shall receive", the priest had said at Mass, and thus he did. He became a paragon of virtue – as much as lively boys are at that age, anyway, but surely He would not hold it against him – and every night, prayed earnestly, ardently, clenching his hands together until the knuckles were white in crushing entreaty, for the one small thing, a minute speck in all Creation, that would still glow in his estimation as brightly as the star over Bethlehem. _

_Christmas. Easter. Birthday. Good school reports. Random treats._

_It never came. _

_Once, tearful with frustration, Mario had yanked and dragged at his mother's skirt, wanting to know what it was that he was doing wrong, why his prayers weren't being answered. It wasn't even the most expensive toy in the store! God didn't want for money, surely?_

_His mother was tired, wearied from another long late shift, but her son was never a burden. She clucked and cooed sympathetically, sat the unhappy boy on her knee, dabbed his eyes and explained. She couldn't give her boys the latest SSC Napoli soccer shirt in the new season, but she could still give them hugs and a decent dinner, keep a roof over their heads and not abandon them as destitute scugnizzi, and they didn't resent her for that, did they? The Holy Father was the same - He gives you what everyone looks for, even if they forget it sometimes - love, kindness, contentment, happiness, peace and serenity. They were more valuable things, things that lasted a lot longer than a little bit of metal which could break or be forgotten._

_Mario thought for a while, and understood._

_So he took a brick, smashed the window, stole the robot, and prayed for forgiveness._

* * *

Mario groaned awake, shifting about in bed. He swept the brochures that he'd been reading before nodding off the night before off of his sheets and onto the carpet as he slowly mustered the energy to get up. His mother had always fretted that Mario was making nothing good of his life, flinging it all into the gutter for the sake of all-too-brief friends, like all of the other feral street-packs; but his extensive travels about the continent heading up his former clan's European ventures put him in extremely good stead for his new, honest work as a travel agent, of all things. Strange how things worked out – he supposed that you could call that the guiding hand of Providence.

Even though he was in no hurry and there was nothing there, he dressed quickly, and felt under the bed to check his Mossberg 590. It was a Saturday and he had the afternoon shift at the agency (but not _The _Agency, he thought with a chortle), and the shotgun had long since been disposed of, but eh – some things just never left you.

One other thing that had never left him in all his years as a Camorra dogsbody was the appreciation of a good Campanian _insalata caprese_, which you could never find abroad (or much in Naples anymore, it had to be said). As he strode out to prepare his brunch, Mario gave a sharp rap on his daughter's bedroom door. "Maria! Don't you have a match on today? It's getting on a bit!"

Abruptly the door banged open and a blur jetted out towards the front door – you could well imagine her sucking the air along with her in sonic boom. "YeahIknowgottafly!"

Mario shook his head with an indulgent smile. "Boots!"

There was a jangling clang as Maria threatened to upset the shoe-tidy in the hallway in her rush.

"Water bottle!"

Maria almost made a sliding tackle across the entire sideboard while making a grab for it.

"Kiss!"

Maria suddenly appeared before him – dark hair in an unkempt tomboyish frazzle, but her eyes shining in a rich amber and a smile that could soothe any ailing heart.

"Have a good day, Dad." She leant up to give her father a peck on the cheek, before with a too-loud bang of the door, she was gone.

* * *

Cream rises to the top – so does scum.

The Villa Floridiana's open parkland provided rare respite from the relentless rounds in the city proper. The green arbours dampened down the touchpaper atmosphere, and softened the pounding sun; it provided a rare opportunity to spread out, to _exhale_.

Neri was not particularly surprised to find out that it was only ever foreigners and tourists who came here. In Naples, the ocean didn't end at the coast, but swept up, seethed and spumed over the hills, only as people, not as water – and just as surely as you were borne by wind and tide on the sea, so too could you not help but keep moving in the city. Real Neapolitans always had business to do.

Walking briskly down the pathways of the villa grounds, Neri found the boss standing under the stone temple pavilion, looking out over the cliff at the edge of the park and down – far down – to the rest of the city.

"Don Ambrogio, sir?" Neri ventured. It hadn't been so long since Ambrogio had succeeded to leadership of the clan, and while he was still naturally accorded all due respect due to him as the leader, it still seemed something of an odd fit – and coupled with Ambrogio's heavy physique (one that was thick-set, not fat, and undoubtedly strong), the resultant sense of uncertainty warranted an approach with some trepidation.

Ambrogio responded by motioning a hand towards the vista. "Take a look."

A little perplexed but nonetheless obedient, Neri did so. At first, the grand sweeping sight of the city extending beneath them was spectacular, even inducing a giddy thrill of vertigo – but what followed, the clanking, grinding and whirring din of a city at work and the wave of fumes lifting up from the buildings to slap against the cliff was enough to nearly floor him in a different way entirely.

"Hmm. You notice. Filthy, isn't it?" Ambrogio grunted. "I've just heard from Stefano, our Padania contact. He wants to traffic Libyan rifles to their Ligurian faction through our Capri branch."

Neri was silent, trusting that when the boss wanted advice or comment he'd ask for it.

"I came up here to consider it." Ambrogio continued. "I like business with a long tail - reliable partners, repeat custom. The Five Republics of Padania have caused an almighty ruckus recently in their attempts to break off north from south, but can they sustain it? If they win, I'd be feted as a hero of the valiant struggle for independence. If they lose, an Agency cyborg will be murdering me in my bed. Hell, they'd probably do it anyway, just for shits and giggles.

"Tiny little waifs. Bare slips of girls, probably not even old enough to have had their confirmations – leaping walls. Catching bullets. Smashing down doors. _Crushing our throats_. Can you imagine that, Neri?"

Neri hissed involuntarily. He _didn't want to_. Camorra, Mafia, Cosa Nostra – Italy's various criminal fraternities all operated under their own corrupt honour codes, but however twisted they may be the one constant amongst them was that _you just didn't fucking talk about the Social fucking Welfare Agency_! A charity which rescued crippled, abused and tormented adolescent girls from the streets… and rebuilt them into superhuman government assassins. It was scarcely creditable, and most of the underworld denied that such a fantastic thing existed… or rather, they _wished_ that it didn't exist.

Ambrogio grunted out a semblance of a humourless laugh. "Grow a pair, Neri, they're only a bunch of bloody precocious tots, for all their fancy hardware. Anyway," he mercifully changed onto a new tack. "Name me an important figure of Italian culture."

Neri was caught flat-footed by the strange and unexpected question, and flailed blindly. "Um, uh, Leonardo da Vinci." he offered, lamely.

"Another."

"…Michaelangelo?" Neri floundered.

"Once more for good luck."

"Dante." Neri remembered reading _Inferno_ in school, just about. He did know that thieves and fraudsters were condemned to the Eighth Circle, and shivered uncomfortably despite the heat. _Just a silly story_.

"What's the one common thing linking those three, then?"

Neri was silent, sure that Teacher Ambrogio was about to tell him. True enough, the lesson continued.

"They're dead." Ambrogio waved a hand out across the city. "Naples is a prime centre of European culture, apparently. Music, cuisine, art, and architecture in particular. They're splendid constructions, no doubt, but they're all ducal mansions and royal palaces. Of course, we got rid of kings back in the Forties, and half of them have since been hacked up into offices. So what then?"

"Well, at least there's always pizza." Neri tried to laugh.

"Great, so the sole legacy of a city with two and half millenia of history is a splat of dough and ketchup a lathering of fat, and even _that_ is something that half of people think that the fucking Americans came up with. Spare me." Ambrogio's jaw tightened – he was genuinely _angry _about this. "I look out over the city here, and I see then throwing up tower blocks at every point of the compass – concrete walls and iron girders that will crumble and rust within a generation, the rubble burying beautiful frescoes and age-enduring stone.

"Modern 'Italy' has no genius, nothing to truly call her own – just desolate, drained fields and degenerate dregs scrabbling around amongst the tumbledown ruins of their grandfathers' labours, trying to arrogate them for their own. It's fraud. It's contemptible. That's why I'm going to bet on Padania, and why they will win their war of independence in the end. Italy is dead, she has been for decades. This is just her body decomposing."

Neri squirmed, feeling distinctly uncomfortable at having been exposed to the pumping and grimy innards of his boss's thoughts, but his reflection was interrupted when Ambrogio addressed a direct question. "Anyway, the details of the deal can be thrashed out in the clan's next meeting. What are you here for now?"

Neri bowed his head grateful for the opportunity to deliver his message and get out. "I've just had a call from Adriano. Everything is prepared at his end."

Ambrogio didn't turn his head back from looking out. "Well, what else is there to say, then? He's to move at the first opportunity. Everything that I want happens afterwards." After tapping his fingers on the cliff-edge railings for a few moments, he suddenly looked up to study the friezes on the underside of the pavilion's cupola. "They call this thing a temple in the brochure. Who to, I wonder?" He mused.

"Maybe it's a timeshare." Neri shrugged.

* * *

Adriano Lippi was a clever man. Not so much in the vein of having a library of witty repartees to be the delight of stimulating conversation – he was always a fairly prosaic character – but he was genuinely smart. He did well in school, and had a host of certifications to demonstrate that that knowledge could be applied, not just regurgitated by rote. He never went to university, but that wasn't through any inadequacy on his own part – he preferred to work with his hands, as it felt so much more meaningful and substantial than drowning himself in ink and suffocating himself with paper. In his adult life, he'd worked variously as a craftsman, a carpenter, a machinist, a gardener and now a groundskeeper – moving from job to job not because of dissatisfaction, but simply a desire to run his hands over everything, and enjoy all that had to be offered.

One other thing that he liked doing with his hands was hurting people.

Adriano had realised this when he'd found out that his wife had made him a cuckold. Adriano had always been an honest man, so faithlessness cut him to the quick and through his normally taciturn demeanour. He'd ranted, he'd raved, he'd roared, and he'd raged. His wife had wept and moaned, pleading weakness, bleating contrition, gabbling abject apologies – which only confirmed her treason. So he'd hit her.

He'd remembered the first time he'd kissed his wife, years ago. That had been wonderful, warm lips crackling like electricity – and now, the hard slap of flesh, the sickly-sweet crack of her cheekbone disintegrating under his knuckles, the extravagant, elaborate arc her head rolled in as she toppled backwards, the solid, sound thump of crafted quality as she struck her head against the table edge, the shrieks and screams of pain and sorrow resonating in his ears. It was overwhelming. It was _even better_.

So, he hit her again. And again. And again. And he kept on doing it, until the police had smashed down the door and dragged him off the smear of mulch and gristle that had been his wife.

Adriano was a clever man – even though he didn't have that much money, he was still able to secure a good attorney. His defence argued persuasively for diminished responsibility, and after six years of quiet contentment with prison routine Adriano had won his parole. He'd made good use of his time inside, too – making connections, gaining introductions, acquiring contacts, such that once he was released, he had little trouble finding work.

Untaxed work, as well, which was always handy.

Adriano liked working with his hands, so for a while he'd been a redecorator – tenants were usually so much more attuned with the rhythms of their _feng shui_ when half of their furniture had been smashed to matchwood, and as he'd discovered when painting someone's wall with their teeth and nose cartilage, red goes with _everything_. Better temperaments also meant that tenants had more respect for Don Ambrogio – Adriano appreciated that. Proper respect where it was due was very important to him – it's something that his late (but unlamented) wife had precious little of.

Let's not forget, though, that Adriano was a clever man, and not one to let his skills wither on the vine. He always maintained broad interests. When Padania mustered their cohorts for the struggle for northern independence, Adriano would often be contracted to craft devices for them to use. He was respected for their quality – so much so, in fact, that the family was happy to bring his work in-house as well.

Shouts and laughter drifted across the playing fields to Adriano as he reclined on a deckchair in a shade of the storage shed. Fresh, crisp grass crinkled underfoot – unlike the indolent staff at other schools, Adriano took pride in his work. All the pounding and tramping of boot-studs and double-footed tackles all through the preceding winter hadn't stripped his pitches barren, and now the turf was as fresh and springy in the spring as it had been at the start of the soccer season. Better surfaces to train on would doubtless stand the First XI in good stead for the rest of the season. Yes, Adriano was justifiably proud in the quality of his work – so much so, in fact, that he added a little extra to the soil, just out of professional courtesy.

The loud chirrup of a whistle sounded out across the fields, followed by a chorus of groans and shouts. Adriano tipped back the brim of his hat in a carefully idle gesture, and smiled approvingly as he saw a girl with short black hair picking herself up off the ground, and a brunette being surrounded by wagging fingers and hectoring voices. He'd bribed the other girl fifty euros to trip her opponent in the penalty box, making up some guff about the staff having a surreptitious flutter on the school's soccer games. Delightful greed had made the brunette's fat face so puffy and swollen that she hadn't even been able to ask a question about the odd arrangement – and afterwards, fear of being exposed as an accomplice, however unwitting, would make sure that her gob would remain firmly shut. If not… well, Adriano was nothing if not thorough.

The black-haired girl was a good kicker – weeks of observation had confirmed that - so there wasn't much chance of someone else being selected to take the penalty. True enough, she could be seen stretching out her legs, positively chomping at the bit at the opportunity to really give the ball some welly. She paced back, nodded to shouted encouragement from her team-mates, bounced on her toes, charged up to the spot, wound her leg back for the shot—

Adriano twisted a dial on what looked for all the world like a personal stereo. There was a dull, bass thud. A patter of scraps of turf. A moment's stupefied, uncomprehending silence.

Then the screaming started.

* * *

(Continued)


	2. Chapter 2

Ambrogio waited a week to let Mario stew, and then went looking for him.

It wasn't difficult. A few 'phone calls, joining the dots between Naples's middling bars, and half an hour in the car found him shuffling down a sidewalk in the Spanish Quarter. The street was busy – they always were in that congested pit at the bottom of the hill, where all of the detritus of Naples rolled down to accumulate - but no-one called out an alarm at the sight of a middle-aged man being hustled into an alleyway. Most thought that it was none of their business, and those who did either decided that they didn't want a drunk vomiting over the precious shrines and believed that being done over was no more than he deserved, or looked to the same shrines and thanked God that this time the Camorra had not come for them.

"You look tired, Mario. Busy man, on your feet all day. You should sit down. All work and no play…" A hard shove from one of Ambrogio's men sent Mario stumbling and tumbling back against the alley stairwell, and he cried out as the rough-edged stone jarred against his back.

Flanked by a pair of bravos on each side, who formed a solid wall blocking the narrow alley, Ambrogio studied the huddled and crumpled bag of flesh that was Mario. He was worn, he was bedraggled, he was shamed… but two eyes peered at Ambrogio, piercing any drunken fog, and fastened the Camorra leader with a flashing challenge. "So, Ambrogio, getting bored of hitting girls, have we? Moving on to doing in old men instead?"

Ambrogio snorted. It must be the 'liquid courage' that Mario had been imbibing all day which gave him the spunk for backchat. "Well, after _that_ little speech, I certainly am. Fabrizio, show our estranged brother the meaning of manners."

Another of Ambrogio's men grinned in delight and stepped forward. The demonstration took about five minutes.

"Stop mewling, you fat slug! You've got enough podge on you to cushion a _bullet_!" Ambrogio roared over Mario's cries of pain, taking pleasure in the derision of his enemy as much as he did in the giving of orders.

Eventually, his thoughtful socio-political treatise impressively and persuasively presented, Fabrizio stepped, back, dabbing bloodspots on his white shirt with a handkerchief – they looked for all the world like tomato sauce from a healthy dish of pasta.

"You defiedme, Mario." Ambrogio's chestnut eyes blazed red like a furnace. "And no-one defies me. No-one. Not my father; not my brothers; not my wife; not the police; not prosecutors; not princes nor presidents; not even the Social Welfare Agency's dainty little _abominations_, who'll get their due in time. And especially not a washed-up, washed-out, fat, gross, backsliding sack of shit such as _you._

"Who said that you were _privileged _enough to have a conscience, Mario? Who gave you the _right_ to be the good guy? Did you ever think what effect you getting all happy and chummy with the police in Amsterdam had on _other_ people, you selfish pig? All of the work that went into the business, squandered? All that many people had invested, wasted? All of your comrades – your _brothers_ – in prison? All of them who were shot down by that fucking Kraut cop, and are _dead_?

"All that pain. All that suffering. All of that impoverishment. All of those anguished, wailing wives who are never going to see their husbands, ever again. All because pious and white, idiotic and trite, unblemished Saint Mario couldn't bear a spot of dirt on his nice manicured hands. All because you just _had_ to be the… the… the Goddamn _hero!_" Ambrogio's expression was twisted into a choking and crushing, almost faceless knot of purple rage, so constricting that he was barely coherent.

"Children…" Mario gasped.

"Children! Children!" Ambrogio brayed mockingly. "Oh, think of the children! Kids! Tykes! Tots! Tantrums! The poor blessed producers of _stinking diapers_! Boo-fucking-hoo, cry me a river!" Ambrogio was bawling openly now. "It's a shitty world, Mario! There's no good there!

"_Why _did you _force_ me to mutilate Maria to _show _that to you?"

Ambrogio was apoplectic, and had to pause in his tirade, leaning against the alley wall for support, sucking in great whales of air, his pupils dilating strangely. Even his men exchanged a couple of perturbed glances.

Eventually regaining his composure, Ambrogio stood back up and adjusted his jacket. "I want you to know that you've achieved nothing with your precious little rebellion against the Camorra, Mario." He grated. The great guns of incandescent fury had been fired off, and now he was breathing out the scathing smoke of utter hatred. "Your grassing to the police may have done for my predecessor, but there's always someone to pass on the torch, to pick up the baton, to keep the idea alive. That's the great strength of a _family_ – something which you don't have, _not anymore_. It's taken a few years to put everything in place, but I'm starting up the business - again."

"It's a shitty world." Ambrogio repeated. "Reflect on that whenever you look upon your ruin of a daughter."

Then he left.

* * *

Henrietta skipped along the path leading from the training area, humming happy, tuneless music to herself. It had been a good day today – the building clearance drills had gone off without a hitch (for her, at least - Petrushka had gotten tangled in her zipwire in the wall-scaling exercise, and they'd all shared a good chuckle as the dancer who was normally so sprightly and elegant and light on her feet dangled there flailing in an ungainly mess, like laundry caught in the wind), and even though her P90 had had a stoppage she had worked through the clearance procedure exactly and with practised efficiency. It had elicited an approving nod from Jose! Warmth flooded across her cheeks at the memory of it. She was happy that he was happy – she knew from personal experience the importance of weapon safety, although she couldn't quite recall what the specific experience was…

In any case, even though low, concrete clouds had been threatening rain all day it had held off – that was good as well, because the open ceilings of Building D turned the floors into rivers and the ground around it into a quagmire in anything more than light drizzle – she didn't have to spoil her bright, new shoes, which she had polished to shining pride the night before. She smiled at the world again – she couldn't think of anything to blemish the day.

A small embankment lay alongside the path, and Henrietta saw Triela sat on top of it, her back to the path and looking out towards the fields over which the second-generation girls were currently struggling, blatting off blanks at each other in laborious fire-and-manoeuvre practise.

"Afternoon, Triela! Looking over there for tips?" Henrietta greeted her fellow cyborg gaily.

"Wha--?" Triela turned her head, distracted. "Oh, hey, 'Etta. No, nothing like that. Just thinking."

Henrietta tensed her thighs and popped up to the top of the embankment in a single bound – training had gone well today, and she adored the abilities of her body. "What about? Share a secret, find a friend, eh?" she smiled.

Triela momentarily grimaced, wanting to be alone for her reflections and much preferring Henrietta to go tumbling back down the slope. Still, Henrietta was normally such a meek sort – it was rare for her to be so bouncy and animated, and try as she might Triela wasn't so grumpy and petty as to puncture her light mood.

"Nothing scandalous, you pint-sized muckraker." Triela joshed, before waving a hand across the field. "I'm just wondering… we're always kept so busy, so active but… but do we ever actually do any _good_ with all of this?"

"Of course we do, silly-billy," Henrietta laughed. Triela normally was the one who took charge, and she was secretly pleased that for once she could be the one to instruct their big sister. "When we do well, we make our masters…" A thrilling trill entered her voice, "…very, very happy." Henrietta clutched herself and swayed, almost overcome with a surge of pleasurable memories. Eventually she regained her composure. "Terrorists and criminals hurt people, too – when we kill them, we're saving so many others."

Triela couldn't remember Amsterdam – a blessing from her conditioning - but she remembered what Mario had told her of it in Naples last winter. From their various troubled pasts before they were saved by the Social Welfare Agency, they knew subconsciously all too well just what it was like to be… _hurt_. "Helping in our own way." Triela studied the palms of her hands, tracing the lines across them with her eyes. She rubbed her wrist, remembering handcuffs clapping around it, hers and Hilshire's cries of astonishment, and a girl's cheeky Cheshire-cat grin. "I suppose that's true."

A few moments' silence passed as the two girls watched the older cyborgs. They glanced at the spectators every so often – Triela wondered if they thought that she was there to size up the competition. Petrushka's distinctive Slavic guttural tones drifted across the field. "Bravo team, give covering fire… Charlie team, prepare to move…"

"Petra always sounds a little odd, don't you think? Strange to hear her speak Italian." Triela mused.

Henrietta remembered something from a book she had read the other day, and felt smart. "I don't think so. You know what they say; variety is the spice of life!"

* * *

Mario hadn't been inside a church in years. He didn't think that he was allowed.

It was an odd sensation. The Duomo Di San Gennaro (if he was going to look for God, he may as well go straight to the top) was on the old city's tourist trail and so the side chapels were full of noisy clod-hopping foreigners braying English and chattering their cameras, but nonetheless some peculiar quality ensured that he felt… quiet. Maybe it was just clever acoustic design; maybe the spirit of Saint Januarius suspended the laws of physics so that the discordant bustle was physically funnelled out of the doors. Whatever the reason, Mario felt that he could recline back in a soft, yielding downy serenity that he had not experienced for a long, turbulent time.

Mario sat on a pew, mouthing silently as he half-remembered old prayers from childhood. He even struggled to bring the Angelus to mind. He did remember how uncomfortable he'd found the rough, gnarled old wood back in his home church, though.

He wasn't godless – it was impossible to be, in the sort of life that he had led. Oh, there were always those who made the grand extravagant pantomime of being macho nihilists – Ambrogino being one of them – but in truth whenever there were bullets zipping overhead you became the most ardent of the faithful; crying out, if not to God or Yahweh, to whoever might be listening. You thanked all hidden and silent powers when each sip of wine wasn't poisoned, or when each subordinate didn't murder you in your bed because a rival had offered them a bare penny's extra pay. There were also times when an associate tearfully wanted to give the boss respect – but couldn't kneel because his legs had smashed to shards by a mallet – that you realised that there was a God, because you'd seen the Devil.

Yes, Mario did believe in God, even if he was far from being His best communicant. The problem was, it was so much easier to assume that He was always there, that He understood, that He in his omniscience could anticipate a prayer that never came, see subconscious contrition beneath outward decadence, and be indulgent enough in His love to assume that humility would be there, if circumstances were different, when you were smashing up a rival's bar in your drunken swagger.

No, not easy. Lazy. Forgiveness was an addictive drug.

Mario didn't know what to expect by coming here. Whether a hard-nosed clergyman would approach and straighten him out with a tough pep talk, whether angels would descend from the rafters bearing understanding between them as golden script on sacred scrollwork, or whether the floor would open up beneath him and send him tumbling down into the seventh circle of the Inferno. He looked about him, suddenly feeling stupid, and his eyes settled on a colourful wall fresco, depicting Renaissance figures contorted around each in what he assumed was profound philosophical significance. Domenichino's _Apparition of the Virgin and Child and San Gennaro at the Miraculous Oil Lamp_, or so said the plaque at the bottom.

Well that was as clear as muck.

Briefly Mario wondered what it would have been like to have been in the position of those painted saints, to see something with such clarity, to have the special insight to understand his situation just as he struggled to grasp the value of colour being slapped up against the wall. Then he thought about what the people in the picture themselves would have thought when agents of Heaven descended down upon them. Some averted their eyes, finding the light unbearable; others looked to those who had fallen in their passion, seeing the result but not the cause; one even just blitheringly stared into the middle distance, totally oblivious to the wonderment spreading above his head. Regardless of their state, all of the figures were assembled around the same oil lamp which they'd doubtless gathered around to talk or pray, day after day. Mario didn't doubt that all of them were quite happy with their comfortable routines and didn't appreciate the miracle arriving to confuse and uproot all that they'd worked for – but when something unique occurred they were not all suddenly raised up in a pillar of gold, but they still all responded, with the faculties, spirit and resources available to them

_Resources available to them._

Mario stayed seated for a while, the awful, creeping realisation of what he had just resolved on pitting his gut. He'd got his answer – God protect him from it!

* * *

The sun looked down the length of the street, lighting it all without the hint of a shadow. It was peaceful, but not empty, and the sounds you heard only added to a general atmosphere of soothing serenity.

A girl was dancing on the pavement, jumping, hopping and tripping along in an energetic _saltarello_. The girl sprung with the full stirring energy of active youth; her movements were precise and skilled, reassuring people that she knew the dance well and that old traditions had not yet expired in a bland modern world; her blonde hair shone like gold, long pigtails curling and swirling around her with the mesmerising intricacy of ribbons; her warm, tanned skin spoke of a life engrossed in the colour and brightness of nature, always under the light of the sun. Anyone inclined to look out of the window or may have turned into the street would have smiled contentedly at the sight, pleased at having the beauty of life affirmed again within them, before continuing on their daily chores with their heads a little higher.

And they did continue on their way, so that eventually the girl was alone, with no witnesses. With a final hop, turning her head to acknowledge silent applause, the girl began to skip down the street, towards the sun.

The skip became a jog.

The jog became a run.

The run became a sprint, and suddenly there was a silver flash whipping around her golden tresses, dancing in front of her as the bag on her back spiralled away down the street and a dark length suddenly materialised in her hands—

Three pounding footfalls brought her to the front door of the target house. She scrunched her toes, clenched her thighs, and one driving piston kick drove through the door, penetrating thick and heavy birchwood like cheap balsa and ripping the lock out of the frame with the whiplash crack of shattered metal and torn wood. Immediately she pulled her leg back and used the momentum to whirl into a balletic pirouette, spinning to the side of the door as it exploded outwards, blasted off its hinges as a thunderous concussion slammed into it from inside the house, and spinning into a hailstorm of shot and splinters that would have flensed flesh from bone.

Wood was still pattering across the ground as she bounced back off the wall and swung around into the darkness of the house.

"_Adriano Lippi! My name is Triela!"_

A sound! Rack! Track! _Fire!_

The trap set to cover the door – a shotgun tied to a simple tripwire – was snatched up and flung away into the recesses of the room's shadows, a tangled mess of twisted metal.

A sound! Rack! Track! _Fire!_

A bureau burst open, billowing clouds of shattered china and cobs of spinning crystal in a discordant din – but multiphase hearing could slice straight through the sense-drowning clamour.

A sound! Rack! Track! _Fire!_

A toolbox balanced on the mezzanine banister was caught in the gale and dashed against the ceiling, exploding mangled implements to rain down around her like shrapnel. Trowels. Pruners. Forks. _Funny._

And metal howling with enough of a racket to smother the creaking floorboards, the click of the slide running home, the faint rush of air as the pistol was raised –

Triela threw herself down as whickering streams of metal creased the air around her head, and scrambled behind a settee as another barking shot parted the fabric of her coat and kissed a stinging weal on her back. The settee shuddered as a pair of shots thudded into it, and Triela grunted as they pushed through and struck her, but their power was spent and they did no more than bruise.

There was a soft _thup_ as the spent cartridge from Triela's third shot hit the carpet, and a cacophonous crash as the pulverised toolbox fell down from the ceiling onto a side-table and smashed a lamp.

Triela exhaled. She quickly felt herself for injury, and blinked as she saw small golden hairs drift languidly in the air, glowing like thin mortal threads in the light. She ran a hand through her hair, and discovered that one of her pigtails had been scissored away by the fire.

She'd been meaning to get to the hairdresser's, anyway.

Triela quickly stripped off her jacket, frowned critically at the tear in the back, and hung it on her Winchester's bayonet. Jabbing it outside of her cover didn't provoke a fresh spasm of shots – Adriano must have withdrawn further into the building.

Discarding the jacket, Triela plastered the mezzanine with a further cartridge as she rushed out to press herself against the wall and outside the field of fire.

Adriano stifled a curse as the buffeting blast of shot forced him to roll back deeper into the upper room. He was confronting a professional, obviously, but the girl had to be running short on ammunition now, and as much as he strained his ears he couldn't hear her slotting home fresh cartridges. He was clever. He had more firepower. He had the advantage.

"You just ruined a lovely coat there, Adriano. It was Versace, new this season – my master had spent a fortune on it."

Adriano blinked. What was she going on about? _Fashion_? Was this some sort of psychological taunting to tempt him out of cover? Jabber all you want, girly-girl, he thought, I'm made of sterner stuff than that.

"I really liked that coat. It was suede, tough but comfortable. It was the first time I asked for something other than a bear. Way to go and spoil something lovely."

Adriano's ears pricked up as he heard the crunch of broken china underfoot. He revised down his estimate of his enemy's proficiency – maybe she was really _just _a girl, after all. Tread carefully all you want, my dearest Triela, he smiled, it'll only make you easier to spot.

"We've found Mrs. Basile's body, by the way. A tramp fished a bag of her out of the bay. Naples has a lot of tramps, a lot of poor, a lot of destitute."

_Crunch._

"Not you though, eh? You have a skill. As Mrs. Basile shows, you're good with your hands – a honest, manual, working man."

_Crunch._

"Not having a landlady also cuts down on the outgoings from your rent, I daresay."

Adriano jumped slightly as he heard the noisy clatter of metal being kicked across the floor.

"Great work on those mechanical thumpers, by the way. They really did distract my fire. You ought to patent them."

_Crunch._

"Speaking of your handiwork, I'd like to comment on your last, ah, 'performance piece'. The mined soccer pitch?"

_Crunch._

"Putting a bomb underneath the penalty spot. Penalties, punishment for Mario Bossi. Very witty. Very clever. Incisive. Pointed. Poetic, even."

_Crunch._

"I'm not trying to brag, but I'm quite perceptive at making inferences and interpretations, and identifying the subtleties of poetic expression. My master is a fine scholar and he educates me in the whole Classical milieu. Catallus. Horace. Virgil. Ovid."

_Creeeeeeeaaak._

First loose stair. Still too low to shoot – the joint between floor and wall at head height at that level made it too thick to fire through – but she was getting closer… Adriano shifted his grip on his pistol and cautiously rose to a kneeling position in the upper room.

"So then, attend, Adriano. 'The Plucking of the Flower'. Or 'Transfiguration of a Young Girl'. She needs to be transfigured – the spiritual side of life's all that left to her after you blew off her limbs."

_Crunch._

"There is a girl. Happy, bubbly, active, effusive. A bit of a tearaway when she was younger, and still fond of mischief now, but provoking playfulness only confirmed her… her _zest _for _life._"

Several seconds passed before Adriano heard her move again. Adriano looked puzzled for a moment. Did he hear a--? No, he couldn't have, this girl was obviously full of herself and imagined that she was some cool calculating hyper-bitch, so she wouldn't be getting emotional in front of an enemy.

"Now her ruined body's lain out on a hospital trolley like a joint of meat at a butcher's."

_Crunch._

"What's the hidden meaning there, Adriano?"

_Clu-tang! _Some garden tool – his little jeering jibe – went skittering down the stairs.

"What's the subtext?"

_Crunch._

"The parabasis?"

_Crunch._

"The Derridan deconstructive metatextuality?"

_Crunch._

"You are a slimy piece of shit and I am going to take great pleasure in making you fucking _bleed._"

_Criiiiiiik._

Second loose stair! Three steps down! He had her cold!

In one fluid motion and with a cackle of victory, Adriano sprung to his feet, punched three rounds through the wall, and rushed out onto the mezzanine to finish the kill—

Triela was standing a few steps further down. She was gripping her Winchester by the barrel, and pressing on the stair with the stock. She looked up at Adriano, and tipped her head in a sweet, genial smile, one that looked almost comical with only one pigtail dangling from her head.

Adriano was flummoxed for a moment, and before he could adjust his aim Triela flicked her weapon up, catching Adriano's pistol-hand with the edge of the butt and slamming it against the wall. He howled in pain, but didn't drop the pistol, and Triela was investing her energy in grinding it loose. Fatal mistake – flashing a vicarious grin down at the girl, he wrenched his hand free, took a step back and had her covered.

A weapon report roared. His arm bucked. And his hand exploded.

Adriano stumbled backwards, staring uncomprehendingly at the ragged stump and the crimson life pumping from it. Shock numbed and slackened his legs, and the sledgehammer-blow of incomparable agony threatened to topple him completely, but a spike of adrenalin drove into his system and flooded his body with stirring and refortifying electric power. Adriano turned to run back into the upper room—

A second report resounded off the walls, gouging through Adriano's thigh. There was a wet slap as a chunk of sodden and misshapen flesh squelched onto the floor in front of him.

Adriano was spun by the blow. Gripping the doorframe with his remaining hand, clenching onto it with a vice-grip as though it was his sole anchor preventing from drifting into oblivion. With quaking effort, he forced himself, inch by inch, to lean upright against the frame. Then through one of the upper windows, with awful, final clarity, he could see a lock of bright falk hair, shimmering, sky-blue eyes, and the ebony glint of a lens—

The Dragunov sang, and Adriano was floored by its music.

"Thanks a bunch, Rico." Triela smiled into her collar microphone.

"Glad to be of help, Trinny! Go get 'im!" Rico's sunny, chirpy, perky voice tripped back across to her.

Triela turned her Winchester 1897 back into a normal grip, thoughtfully rubbing the thin scratched groove on the breech housing – where she'd blocked one of Pinnochio's knives back in Montalcino – with her thumb. She mounted the top of the stairs, surveying the detritus that the furious exchange had left on the mezzanine. She gave a sharp intake of breath when she saw the ruins of Adriano's pistol – Rico's shot had totally obliterated the grip and chewed out a chunk of the mechanism, but she could still recognise an F.N. Five-Seven from its barrel. She pawed the bruises on her breasts where the spent bullets had struck her – the Five-Seven was the notorious "cop-killer", a favourite of gangsters as its enlarged rounds could defeat body armour; Triela didn't doubt that they wouldn't have shown much respect for her enhanced physique, either. She'd been fortunate – she didn't want to distress Hilshire with another injury.

Adriano lay across the threshold – his twitching, bloodied legs in the mezzanine, his torso in the darkness of the upper room. Triela felt around the door for a light switch, and flicked it on.

Rico's third shot had lanced through Adriano's lung. He lay flopping and sucking like a beached fish, drowning in air, bubbling pink froth like some rabid creature and choking on his own blood. His eyes bulged at Triela as he saw her, and his twitching arms banged against the floor as he tried to will them to push himself upright. Triela let him manage about thirty stuttering and hacking degrees before pushing him back down with the light press of the flat of the Winchester's bayonet against his cheek.

Blood burbled up between Adriano's lips. Spite was strong in his gut, though, and he coughed and gargled through it, "Not… revenge… should… alone… face to face… coward."

"Actually, Adriano, I'm blessed with _friends_. We're not seeing any of your 'brothers' running here to haul a comrade's fat out of the fire, are we?" Triela moved her Winchester so that the tip of the bayonet hovered poised over Adriano's throat, and waited for a few seconds for emphasis.

Adriano blinked, and brought up gross bronchitic spew to poison his last gasps of draining blood. "Triela. See… you… Hell."

"Don't the Camorra keep files on us cyborgs, Adriano? I died years ago. My soul's already there, waiting to pick up where we leave off here."

Triela gripped the stock of her shotgun tightly, and thrust once.

* * *

(Continued)


	3. Chapter 3

The Piazza del Plebiscito was a celebration of sumptuous grace set above a city that had slumped into a pit of mean poverty. It was the widest open space in the whole of Naples, a bracket of relief from the dense press of humanity. The dawn shone off the sweeping expansive colonnades of the Church of San Francesco di Paola, its brilliant white stone flashing with the same august splendour the great Roman Pantheon; the sunset added texture to the mature depth of history found in Naples' Royal Palace. The very square itself was dedicated to the enjoining of the Neapolitan kingdom with a wide and completed Italian nation – no place could be more of a testament to triumph and freedom.

Hilshire watched Mario from inside the car. It had been a long time since Hilshire had been in the police, but there were some things which just never left you. The satisfying, secure clink of a pair of handcuffs against your belt. A certain degree of tolerance for bad coffee. The despair of a tottering mound of paperwork. The clipped, curt fulfilment of a sharply-tailored uniform.

An Amsterdam warehouse and its stench of piss and filth and terror that seeped into, and now rotted from, every pore of your body.

Hilshire also remembered prisons, and prisoners. The new fish, first time in the clink, whose bawling misery and tardy repentance rang off concrete, and who made a spasm at the sound of every clanking door as though it was a clamp crushing a limb. The brooder, silent, still - and sullen – sitting insular and imperturbable, as cold fury and black malice rebounded back off cell walls to accumulate within him. The usual suspects – repeat offenders, who treated each spell back as a hotel on a regular business trip, lazily reclining into the settled groove of routine (and racketeering).

Then, there were the lost; the beaten; the broken. Those whose vitality had leached into the concrete, whose soul had been crushed by being amongst a thousand fellows but still staying alone, and whose hope had been ground out under the wheels of Fortune. Faces as rumpled and creased as their overalls. Grey. Drawn. Small.

_Rehabilitated._

Mario Bossi had been a canny lad in his youth, a wily operator as a man, and a penitent angel in his middle age, and consequently had danced around the edge of the pit of prison all his life. Now he had been lamed, and had fallen in.

The Piazza del Plebiscito was a broad round disc, a medallion proclaiming man's own will and victory to Heaven. Hunched on a bench in the shadow of the colonnades, Mario looked as though he was a man trapped in the ten feet of his cell – and terrified of the light streaming through the bars, and all that they represented of decades lost and forgotten from a world that had moved on without him.

He looked old.

"I don't notice any suspicious elements about. I think that the site may be clean. Ready?" Jean asked from the driver's seat.

"Be gentle with him, Jean," Hilshire pleaded as the two got out of their car, "you know that he's been through a lot lately."

Jean eyed Hilshire coldly across the roof of the car, before concealing himself with his sunglasses. "In case you hadn't noticed, we're in the middle of a civil war. Mario – the _Mafioso_ – can join the fucking club." The last words were spat with venom that almost burnt into the paving stones.

It was a long walk across the Piazza, but even though it was relatively quiet and largely free of people at this time of day Mario didn't notice them until the two had ascended the steps of the colonnade. "Afternoon, Mario." Hilshire proffered. Not much of a greeting, perhaps, but he had worried that opening with profuse condolences would only have twisted the knife in further.

Mario didn't raise his head. "Hartmann. Been a while. I didn't see you when Triela went off gallivanting back before Christmas, did I?" His voice grated with the broken hoarseness of a body being dragged along slate.

Hilshire opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by Jean, who took the more direct method to provoking some eye contact with Mario. "You stink of whiskey." He said, with a hammer's bluntness.

"My clothes do. My breath doesn't." Mario rolled his head up to confront Jean. He was unshaven, unkempt, and wrinkles of care and worry were scored into his face – but his eyes were not burning red with stinging tears, or bleary and yellow with drunken jaundice. All of the tears had been wrung out of him, leaving his eyes dry, and clear - like glass. Both Hilshire and Jean were taken aback at their coldness.

Mario glanced past the two agents, before grunting again. "Speaking of Triela, is she not with you?"

Hilshire harrumphed. He'd rehearsed this conversation multiple times as soon as Mario's request for a meeting had filtered down to him, but now that he was here, confronted by the reality of the situation, he didn't quite know what to say. He was grateful for the opportunity to latch onto something specific. "No, I couldn't get her out of her room. She had a bad hair day recently and is mortified at the prospect of being seen in public. Girls, eh?"

Jean flicked his gaze to Hilshire, appalled at his stupid, nervous smile and his lame attempt at levity. The… the _imbecile_! Jean himself couldn't care less, but if Hilshire wanted to soothe Mario then allusions to girlish giddiness like that were a damn catastrophic way of going about it. He spoke loudly, intending to distract Mario's attention before he could focus on Hilshire's badly-fumbled attempt at ingratiation and take offence from it. "We've instructed our cyborgs to remain at base to save you the indignity. You're not presentable – you wouldn't want them gawping. Bad enough that we have to put up with it as it is."

Hilshire fixed Jean with a withering glare. Jean glanced back at the other man from behind his sunglasses. Huh. There was gratitude for you. He'd remember that the next time Hilshire needed a favour.

"You're not wrong." Mario growled, the resentment obvious. His world had been rocked to its foundations, but it hadn't fallen, and he despised Jean for treating him as though he was some scrappy guttersnipe picking through the _tubi _of an earthquake ruin – and he despised himself for ever creating the situation where he could be abused in such a way.

"This whole scenario has been good for something", Jean muttered. "After the bombing, pretty much every faction of Padania flooded everything from local rags to the Euronews channel with _denials_ of responsibility. They've been muzzled for the past fortnight: not a hint of action anywhere, no suggestion of even so much as terrorist movement. They don't want to touch _this_ one with a barge-pole. There was no ardent struggle of oppressed peoples, no powerful profession of high-minded idealism. One girl, targeted deliberately – it was pure sadism." And I should know, he thought silently.

"And that evil spirit hasn't gone unpunished." Hilshire added hurriedly, wondering if Jean was trying to deliberately sabotage this meeting with his lashing remarks - he'd deal with Jean's surly demeanour afterwards. He stepped forward past Jean and leant down to his old friend, and measured out his words, trying to be kind. "Mario, I want you to know that Adriano Lippi, the Camorra man who… who _wounded_ Maria, is dead. Triela killed him two days ago. It won't turn the clock back on this tragedy, I know – but I hope that it provides you some consolation, and Maria some comfort."

"Nothing to link him to Don Ambrogio, though?" Mario said, a little too quickly, trying to push through the fluid beading at his eyes.

"Section One is still inspecting the evidence – but it seems unlikely, no. Code of Silence, no grassing, you know how they operate."

Mario was silent for a while, only sniffing once or twice. "_Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord._" He declared suddenly.

Hilshire blinked. "Sorry?"

"I'm just saying," Mario emitted a long, tired, stuttering sigh, "I can wait."

Hilshire gnawed the inside of his cheek as he considered what to say next. Section Two hadn't arranged the day – there was no objective to be met, no agenda to fulfil, no brief to follow. Mario had been the one who called this meeting, but for all of his recent misery, Mario didn't want to have a shoulder to cry on – he was a man and so still had pride, and in any case he hadn't done so in the fortnight since the outrage perpetrated on Maria; he was also sensible enough to know that he'd be unlikely to find much sympathy amongst the hard beds of spies and soldiers. Hilshire worried as to the purpose Mario had brought them here for.

He worried that he'd guessed right on the way to the Piazza.

"How is Maria doing?"

"It's... it's a joke. It's some... some _fucking_ joke." Hilshire's eyes opened wide in surprise. Mario had rarely sworn, even in his Camorra days - he didn't want to demean Italianate culture before muddy and rank north-Europe barbarians, he had said at the time, and he'd only been half-joking. It wasn't a casual enunciation to his speech but a real, foul _obscenity _that you could almost see polluting the air as he spat it out. Up to now Mario had tried to maintain something of his gruff and flinty old mafia swagger, but as it began to slip away it could be readily seen to be a very thin sheen of composure indeed – the wounds were still red-raw.

Mario hauled in a ragged breath before continuing. "It... it just has to be. No-one on God's earth could have that much... that much heaped upon her."

Jean scuffed a piece of lint from the sleeve of his jacket, not making any show of sympathy for a lifetime criminal who had only recently played his way out of gaol - and consciously ignoring Hilshire's reproachful glare. "But it has been, hasn't it, _Don_ Bossi?"

Mario was so sunken in his woe that he didn't feel Jean's barb. "The blast... _destroyed _her legs. Her right arm... was..." he swallowed the next word back down noisily, and continued, "...they had to amputate it. Shrapnel-- shrapnel in her gut, her lung, her _spine_, her _eyes_... her sweet, bright eyes... just like her mother's..."

Mario's hands began to curl into fists, but froze, quivered, and set into claws. With a sudden strangled howl, he dashed them against his face.

Crying out in alarm, Jean and Hilshire both surged forward and grappled Mario's arms before he could harm himself. Mario was strong, though, and he heaved and surged and fought and pushed and the three tumbled to the ground in a wrestling tangle. Still Mario squirmed and struggled, threatening to send the three down the stairs of the colonnade, but the military strength of the two Section Two agents eventually told and Mario was pushed and pressed against a column before the struggle drew too many curious glances from the pedestrians down in the Piazza.

Mario was gasping and panting from the sudden exertion, and turned his head to Hilshire. It had been the last sputter of Mario's fire, and his eyes formed two black pits of utter desolation.

Hilshire held his breath.

"You… you know what I'm going to say, what I'm here to ask for. Don't you?" Mario said, quietly.

"Maybe."

Hilshire's voice had changed. Disappointment bleached his expression.

"But you have to be the one who says it."

* * *

The warming light of spring had waxed into the full blaze of summer. Even with the sea breeze snapping through the ensigns and burgees of the yachts filling the marina of the Borgo Mariano, it was still feverishly hot weather.

Mario watched them from about forty yards down the street. The man had noticed him already, adjusting his sunglasses meaningfully, but the girl hadn't – presumably her own sunglasses shaded her sight as much as they concealed her eyes.

The two of them sat at a small table outside the Bersagliera (oh, very swish – was this what taxpayers stumped up for?), with three chairs. The girl wore a light, loose blouse and a short dark skirt (matching her hair), ideal to remain cool and ventilated in the beating weather, and lounged in her wicker chair comfortably, swinging her bare athletic legs around under the table in the sheer pleasure of movement. The man, however, was contrastingly clad in a full pinstripe suit despite the sweltering heat, and sat erect in his chair even though its broad, curved back had been designed for slouching. Former soldier, Mario decided, freshly transferred out from the army. Probably still brushes his teeth to a regimental pause of two-three. Marco wasn't sure if he liked that or not.

There were two espressos on the table.

Maria had never drunk espresso - she always thought that it was a rip-off paying through the nose for such a tiny cup. She preferred dark, heavy Moccona in a big, thick, wide mug that she could slide her hands around and snuggle up on the settee with while she watched a movie.

Mario swallowed, and walked down the esplanade.

"Hello," he said, affecting a cheery demeanour as he approached the table, "mind if I sit down? It's hard to get a seat."

The girl looked confused. "But the café's only half-full. There's loads of empty tables…"

The man laid a hand on the girl's arm, and she was shushed immediately. "By all means, friend, we can always do with company." As Marco slipped into the third chair, the man proffered his hand. "Avise Mancini. How do you do?" The girl abruptly turned her head at the mention of the name, her mouth agape in surprise. His real name, then, Mario thought as he shook with Avise. He was being taken into some confidence.

"Not too shabbily. Can't say that it's an exciting life, but I'm getting to the age where you can appreciate the peace and quiet." Mario replied. He tapped the table idly, before cocking a thumb back at the clanking masts and jackstays clustered in the marina. "Do you sail, at all?"

Avise shrugged. "Tried to, years back. I had to organise adventure training for my platoon – a week's dinghy sailing." He touched the back of his head tenderly, "A boom swung over and clopped me a concussion, and that was that." The girl didn't speak.

Mario waited a few seconds, considering another approach. "I… I have an odd relationship with the sea. I like the look of it in photos and paintings – who doesn't? – but when you're actually there, the smell of old seaweed, the battering of the waves, seagulls croaking… it gets on your nerves when it's been going on for hours."

"Bad luck for you to be born on the coast, eh?" Avise chuckled.

"Yeah, that's why I like this place," Mario glanced towards the girl, trying to catch her attention as she sipped at her espresso, the very model of indifference. "You can be near the sea, but the sea wall out there keeps the noise down. We come down quite frequently. You, ah, you remember?"

Again, no comment was elicted from the girl. Damnit, why? She'd spoken before, why did she have to button herself up now? He wanted to hear her! Mario was frustrated with trying to tease a response out of the uncommunicative girl, and tried to be direct. "Oh, I'm sorry, I forget my manners. We haven't been introduced. I'm Mario Bossi. And you--?"

The girl answered in same voice of his daughter, "Colombina de—"

"It's okay, we're with a friend here." Avise gave Mario an embarrassed smile.

The girl gnawed her lip before finally speaking, uncomfortable with exposing herself but beholden to the order, "A… Agapita."

"Agapita…" Mario repeated. "Agapita. _Agapita_. That's…" He clutched his eyes shut as though they stung. "… that's lovely."

Agapita seemed to appreciate this, nodding. "Signor Avise gave it to me." She said, a reverential flutter in her voice.

"Do they, um… do they look after you? At the Agency?" Mario knew that it was a lame thing to ask, but he wanted… he didn't know what he wanted, except to speak to her.

Agapita seemed taken aback. "Of course. Signor Avise is a bit of a hard taskmaster though. Why he puts me through an hour's PT every day when I have artificial muscles that won't run to fat I'll never know." She playfully punched her master's arm.

The voice – that voice – resounded in Mario's ears like the fading echo of a bomb blast. It was maddening. Intolerable. "Please… just one thing… for me… take off your sunglasses." Mario pleaded, his hands clasped in entreaty.

Agapita looked to Avise, but he didn't speak – this was something for her own initiative. Cautiously, guardedly, and slowly, she reached a hand to her face and pulled off her sunglasses. Grey eyes blinked in the sun.

They were not her mother's.

With a strangled, pain-wracked sob, Mario launched himself out of his seat, went around the table and gripped Agapita in a fierce, tight embrace.

Agapita convulsed. Power surged through her limbs. She thrust herself to her feet, sending her chair flying back to collide with and upset another table, and ripped herself out of Mario's arms. Mario barely had the time for his face to adjust into blank incomprehension before she clamped her hands around the bewildered man's arm and with one flick of her wrists and a clattering crash of smashed crockery flung him over the table for a winding and bone-jarring impact on the paving stones.

"Agapita, _primary command all-stop!_" Avise yelled, as the cyborg scrabbled around the floor to grab some cutlery. Immediately she froze, wavering as though she was stunned from a fierce blow, her face falling slack and her eyes unfocusing and filming over in vacant suspension. Avise glanced around him, biting back an obscenity as all of the other diners gawped at the entire messy scene. At least the place wasn't heaving with people, it would make corralling them easier.

"My God! You dirty old man!" He shouted loudly and publicly. "And in broad daylight as well! Shameless! Disgusting! Get out of our sight before I call the police!" Avise knelt down to grab Mario and shove him rudely and brusquely out into the esplanade. As he did, he growled into the Mario's ear "We'll try again. The alley around the back of the building in fifteen minutes. Go now, I'll clear up here."

Still barely coherent from the wave of shock that had picked him up and cast him down, Mario staggered off, with a bruised body, bruised dignity, and a bruised heart.

The master and cyborg were standing waiting for him as he entered the alleyway. The bright light of the day was immediately replaced by a more sombre shade in the shadow of the buildings.

Avise looked embarrassed enough for the pair of them. "Ah, good to see you again. Agapita here has something that she wants to say."

Agapita stepped forward, her hands clasped at her waist and head bowed, looking for all the world like the red little schoolgirl who he'd stood behind and made to apologise to her teacher for leaving a thumbtack on his seat.

"I'm terribly sorry, sir," Agapita mumbled in meek and humbled contrition. "I recognise that you didn't intend any harm, and that my response was excessive and unwarranted. Everything is my own fault, and I hope that you haven't suffered from it."

She emitted a gasp of surprise as Mario placed his hands on her shoulders, and raised her head questioningly. Their eyes met – and held. "There's one thing that you can do to make it up to me… Agapita.

"Cherish your life. Every breath, every blink, every beat of your heart. Every bead of sweat… and every drop of blood. Never resist a new sensation, and leap into every new land to explore. You've been given a great gift, a brilliant opportunity, and to hold back would be to waste it. For all you time, keep… _running_."

Mario traced his hands down Agapita's arms to clasp her hands. "And if the Agency ever captures a Camorra boss called Ambrogio, be a good girl and do what an old washed-up man can't – and sock him in the kisser for me."

"I, um… I'll try?" Agapita looked confused.

Mario released Agapita, who stepped back, visibly relieved at the passing of an intense beat. He then turned towards Avise. "I think that that's about everything."

Avise nodded. "Very well. You understand that the Agency will henceforth break off all contact with you – I'm sure that you know the reasons." He inclined his head towards Agapita. "Your emergency number will remain active, but it's only to be employed in matters of direct threat to your life – _any_ unnecessary use will result in its withdrawal, and you will be on your own."

Mario nodded, and spared one last look at Agapita, who was idly balancing on one leg while studying the buildings rising up around them.

Mario moved his gaze back to Avise, and stabbed a finger, very deliberately, at the other man's heart. He then walked past the agent, speaking softly but surely,

"_You look after my baby girl_."

They both stood watching Mario's retreating back before he was finally lost in the bustle of the street, and all that was left with them was the subdued hum of the empty alleyway.

Agapita was quiet for a while, although Avise could see her eyes flickering as thoughts spun and whirred inside her head. She continued to look towards the street which Mario had dissolved into.

"Signor Avise, sir…" A tremulous note quavered in her voice, but the sense was immediately lost as it became taut and confident again. "Just what was _that_ all about? Weird man."

Avise turned to his cyborg, with a face of almost mournful compassion, before he cleared his throat and adopted a more businesslike tone. "That, Agapita, was a test in your reconnaissance skills – maintaining public cover. And while I'm glad to see that you've been keeping up your CQC regime, using a table as a trampoline is far from inconspicuous. I hadn't finished my espresso, either! I'm afraid that you a big fat F. You will do range relays when you get back – and don't stop until you score over ninety."

Agapita's mouth dropped open in dismay. "Aw, man!"

* * *

It took them a couple of hours to drive back to Rome and the Social Welfare Agency's compound, so it was sunset before Agapita finished the task that Avise had assigned her. Some of the girls viewed weapons training as the fun part of the job, but after five strenuous hours of lugging forty pounds of weapons and ammunition, up and down, back and forward, left and right sprinting to different ranges, rolling into different stances stinging from hot casings, scraping along gravel, sliding through mud, knowing that anything even slightly erring from a bull's-eye with every round in a full magazine would only have her do it all over again, and as arms and legs became weighted with the lead of fatigue the prospect of completion only spiralled ever downwards, while her comrades were happy unwinding… well, you could have too much of a good thing.

Eventually Avise sounded the halting klaxon, and Agapita wearily and gratefully shuffled off the rifle range, hauling a soot-clogged weapon (what had possessed her to pick an SA80?) plastered with dust and dirt, damp with sweat, and reeking of gunpowder – altogether, far from ladylike.

"I hope that you're not _tired_, Agapita," Avise met her outside the gate, "they've spent millions upon millions to make you superhuman, and you're not giving them that much value for money." There was no malice in his voice, though, and it was only gentle joshing. "I'll wait for you here - take your SA80 straight back to the armoury. I have some work to do there tonight so I'll clean your weapon for you while I'm there."

Agapita didn't disguise her glee, and almost pranced away.

On her way back, she noticed a soccer ball lying on the grass by the path. She wondered where it had come from – maybe the younger girls had been playing with it, but they always struck her as very prim sorts not interested in that sort of thing. Curiously, Agapita gave the ball a kick, bouncing it back off of the wall of a neighbouring building. Catching it nimbly with her foot, she kicked it again, jogging to intercept it as it bounced away at an unexpected angle.

She rolled the ball underneath the sole of her foot thoughtfully for a few moments, before tapping it away to roll across the tarmac and rest in the lee of the building and its lengthening shadow. It seemed fun, but she could well imagine chasing after a ball getting tiresome after a while.

Anyway, soccer was a game for boys.

"…be sure to say your prayers once you're back from ablutions! It's the blessed Assumption tomorrow, don't forget. You're scheduled for a route march with Petrushka, Silvia, and Piera, but you can tell the warden that I gave you permission to link up with them after Mass."

Agapita gnawed her lip in consternation. "They won't like that. It'll look as though I'm shirking."

Avise laughed. It was a happy jangle of sound, pleasant to listen to, and it immediately melted Agapita's face back into a smile. "We might get some of those godless heathens to see the inside of a church once in a while if they thought that they'd get time off, mightn't we?" He grinned.

Agapita nodded contentedly, but as they walked the smiles and laughter reminded her of the rather stark contrast of the events earlier in the day. "Sir," she ventured cautiously, not wishing to prod a sensitive area, "that man we met. He seemed to be… affected by something. Before I flipped him over the table, I mean." She smiled nervously, wincing inwardly at the admission.

Avise didn't check his pace, but he dropped his head so that a hooded expression fell over his face. "Alright, Agapita, Big Book of Spying, Observation 101. What do _you_ think affected him?"

"Well, he seemed uncomfortable… no," Agapita checked herself, "that's not the word. _Clumsy_ - he wanted to be there, but he wasn't sure what to _do_ when he got there. He needed a lead to follow, but it was only when you mentioned my name, sir, that he seemed to… well, wake up." Genuine confusion flickered across her eyes. "Why was that, sir? It must have reminded him of something to provoke so strong a reaction, but I can't think what's so special about a simple name."

Avise stopped abruptly, almost causing Agapita to stumble. He placed a hand on her shoulder and turned her round to face him.

He held her gaze for several long, laden seconds.

Agapita began to feel uncomfortable herself – her enhanced eyesight meant that the lengthening shadows didn't obscure anything, but even so she found it impossible to discern whether her master was accusing her of something, or the intensity of his gaze was trying to reach out to (or pierce?) her soul. She eventually blinked to break the contact; while being inspected was nothing new – she was well aware of what had been necessary to transform her into a cyborg – the unknown quality in Stefano's eyes made it not a clinical survey but something deep and searching, and the private nubs far at the back of her mind recoiled from that touch. The rouge sunset light dusting her face disguised her blushes.

Avise moved his hand up from Agapita's shoulder and pressed his thumb against her forehead, printing the impression of a Cross on her skin while he moved his lips with the breath of a prayer that even her keen ears couldn't pick up. "Everything has meaning." He said aloud, with a suddenly sad tone to his voice. "Everything from the blade of grass in the wind to the war we fight now is shaped by an essence and driven by a will. Everyone has their secrets – perhaps that's mankind's folly, because there's always one person who you can never keep it from. As you start your life here with me, and with us, you'll have a glimpse of the undercurrent that we all float on: the privilege of seeing people as they really are – or at least how consistently they lie to themselves. It takes exhaustion and anguish to knock down those walls, and penetrate that armour, and it will be a hard life. But here's one thing for free.

"Agapita," Avise sighed, turning his head away as he went back up the path towards the men's block. He'd already moved off some way before he called back to his watching girl,

"_Beloved._"

* * *

**THE END.**


End file.
